Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes
Publications list

Sydney Morning Herald

Tomatometer-approved publication.

Prev Next
Rating Title | Year Author Quote
North (1994) Anna Maria Dell'oso North is a passably interesting idea hacked and butchered into an inept film that's as boring as watching paint dry.
Posted Jan 26, 2026  Edit critic review
Misery (1990) Lynden Barber Misery is a turn-up, a spare tale drawing its effectiveness from suspenseful plotting and strong performances.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
White Fang (1991) Lynden Barber The best the thing about White Fang is its splendid landscape photography.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
Pacific Heights (1990) Lynden Barber What really hampers Pacific Heights is a script too contrived to really convince.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
The Secret Agent (2025) Sandra Hall There’s plenty of suspense here, but also a strong strain of gallows humour running through the serpentine storyline as if to pay tribute to the benefits of absurdism as a survival strategy, and Mendonça Filho has done a great job evoking the 1970s.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Madly (2025) Jake Wilson ...the film is hit-and-miss: cinematographer Fabrizio Lucci knows how to light a set, but the editing is on the haphazard side, when the material demands an abstract neatness.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
3/5
Primate (2025) Sandra Hall It’s a wild ride during which you’re not even tempted to wonder if there’s a man in the monkey suit.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Marty Supreme (2025) Jake Wilson ...the movie is basically a picaresque dark comedy juiced up with violent slapstick and audacious stunt casting, with Chalamet stunting the hardest of all.
Posted Jan 21, 2026  Edit critic review
The American President (1995) Anna Maria Dell'oso When you unwrap The American President from its White House tissue, there's not much more to it than The Prince Who Falls in Love With The Commoner... Yet the dream of this movie is so beguiling you want to talk down the yellow brick road.
Posted Jan 20, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
No Other Choice (2025) Jake Wilson As social satire, moreover, it may not say anything all that new. But it’s masterful on its own terms, and for all its relentless pessimism far from depressing. On the contrary, there’s something exhilarating about a filmmaker willing to go all the way.
Posted Jan 15, 2026  Edit critic review
3/5
David (2025) Sandra Hall The film’s strengths are in the vitality of its animation and the beauty of its settings. ...Its flaws lie in its evangelical moments which sit oddly with its Disneyfied tone but that doesn’t seem to be deterring audiences.
Posted Jan 15, 2026  Edit critic review
Stand by Me (1986) Paul Byrnes The striking thing about Stand By Me is its mixture of innocence, melancholy, and realism.
Posted Jan 14, 2026  Edit critic review
Gaslight (1944) SMH Staff Gaslight... has been translated into a distinguished suspense film, gripping and intense by George Cukor as director.
Posted Jan 13, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Hamnet (2025) Sandra Hall The film’s storyline is more straightforward than the book’s and its main points are spelt out more emphatically but if the plot loses some of its delicacy on screen, the impact of its ending makes up for it.
Posted Jan 13, 2026  Edit critic review
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Paul Byrnes What makes the film special is that Jackson and his team have finally given Tolkien's imagination the kind of film it deserves.
Posted Jan 13, 2026  Edit critic review
A Few Good Men (1992) Lynden Barber Aaron Sorkin, who reportedly rewrote his successful play with much help from Reiner, has nevertheless delivered a tightly turned story which pulls an initially complex picture full of specialist jargon into focus at the exact rate the viewer demands.
Posted Jan 08, 2026  Edit critic review
The Sure Thing (1985) Paul Byrnes Sure Thing is less confidently handled, but it has some wonderful moments of good natures humor and more restraint than Hollywood usually allows itself.
Posted Jan 08, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Nouvelle Vague (2025) Jake Wilson This isn’t Breathless, of course: in contrast to Godard’s freewheeling approach, to call Nouvelle Vague a museum piece wouldn’t be entirely unfair. But it’s an experimental film too, in its own way.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Grand Prix of Europe (2025) Jake Wilson Like the recent Pets on a Train, the film resembles a video game transferred to the big screen, stronger on design than anything else.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Christy (2025) Sandra Hall Bristling with energy and ambition, [Sydney Sweeney's] Christy is an appealingly indomitable figure with a sharp sense of humour. You’re with her all the way as she finally gets back in touch with her urge to survive.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
Adventures in Babysitting (1987) Paul Byrnes It's a high-spirited, fast-flowing comedy, neatly directed by 28-year-old Chris Columbus.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
The Princess Bride (1987) Paul Byrnes The real comic honours, however, belong to Mandy Patinkin, who is unforgettable as a Spanish swordsman on a 20-year mission of revenge. His duel with Westley is a pure delight.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) SMH Staff Uncompromising as it is, the narrative has been set forth with singular skill and realism.
Posted Jan 07, 2026  Edit critic review
3/5
Resurrection (2025) Jake Wilson The emotion that comes through most strongly is Bi’s determination to dazzle us any way he can, as if fearful his own time in the spotlight might soon run out.
Posted Jan 02, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
The Choral (2025) Jake Wilson The most moving moments in this moving film occur when characters refuse to compromise their principles to smooth the path to a happy ending – indicating that Bennett...has his own clear sense of where to draw the line.
Posted Jan 02, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Song Sung Blue (2025) Sandra Hall Rather than being sentimental, it’s a fundamentally good-natured film, paying homage, as Brewer says, to those who find their niche as entertainers beloved by those audiences who get the chance to find them and see what they can do.
Posted Jan 02, 2026  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 (2025) Stephanie Bunbury As political critique goes, it’s a mere skim over the obviously bumpy surface of things, but the accumulation of images and excerpts does gather force over two hours to become a convincing roar of protest.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Urchin (2025) Stephanie Bunbury This back and forth, tick-tocking between episodes of hope and defeat, doesn’t amount to a conventional story arc, but Dickinson...maintains an unerring pace, kicked along by unpredictable bursts of Alan Myson’s electronic score.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
The Marching Band (2024) Stephanie Bunbury Emmanuel Courcol’s Gallic charmer is nevertheless the film we need right now: a story in which people learn to be their best selves; that pays respect to working communities torn apart by the global economy; a story, moreover, centred on a brass band.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Rental Family (2025) Sandra Hall It’s a sweet film with a touching ending and Fraser, with his wide-eyed looks and well-meaning air, is perfect casting but Hikari’s direction is a little too leisurely. It strips out the tension and the film doesn’t work quite as well as it deserves to.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
The Housemaid (2025) Jake Wilson ...the refusal to take the thriller mechanics seriously gives the storytelling a laborious quality – and there’s a certain vestigial earnestness, as if we were meant to believe the script had something meaningful to say about class or gender relations...
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Sentimental Value (2025) Sandra Hall The story shapes up as a meditation on the sentimental value of art itself.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (2025) Jake Wilson ...the bursts of invention are nowhere near frequent enough to mask the oldest formula in family entertainment, where the over-reaching hero learns that he’s better off just being himself.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Anaconda (2025) Sandra Hall Gormican is relying much too much on the nostalgia vote. At the risk of spoiling the party, I confess to finding the whole thing underdone.
Posted Dec 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) Lynden Barber If it contains hokiness and cornpone, these are not served in portions so large they can't be swallowed, and there are at least enough quality ingredients to aid digestion.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
My Own Private Idaho (1991) Lynden Barber A self-indulgent mess redeemed by moments of brilliance.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Turtle Beach (1992) Lynden Barber it would be nice to report that the film wasn't that bad after all, but it turns out to be a complete disaster, and on a number of levels.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Hook (1991) Lynden Barber Steven Spielberg has fashioned a piece of laboured New Age mush, an awkward cross between a rollicking children's entertainment and one of those fashionable Hollywood films about the redemption of a yuppie.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
The History of Sound (2025) Jake Wilson Both in theme and structure, The History of Sound recalls Ang Lee’s once furiously debated Brokeback Mountain (now widely and justly viewed as a modern classic). But this isn’t quite the same kind of full-bodied love story.
Posted Dec 17, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) Sandra Hall With a story as intrinsically weird as this one, there is only one way to go: Make it big. And as usual, Cameron doesn’t disappoint.
Posted Dec 17, 2025  Edit critic review
3/4
Christine (1983) Susie Eisenhuth It's great stuff really, and I'm happy to say director John Carpenter of Halloween fame and his players deliver it with a hefty serve of humor.
Posted Dec 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Christine (1983) Anna Maria Dell'oso It is a gripping, surprisingly fine, modern fairytale about possession, materialism and the worship of the motor car.
Posted Dec 17, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) Sandra Hall ...the film is a memorable addition to the canon but its extreme enthusiasm for bloodletting and its grisly aftermath mark it as being strictly for the converted.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Pets on a Train (2025) Jake Wilson Indeed, a video game is what Pets on a Train mostly resembles – treating a whimsically arbitrary, blatantly derivative plot line as the basis for a series of logic puzzles, which the characters must band together to solve before time runs out.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Kokuho (2025) Jake Wilson ... a sumptuous spectacle that is far less ponderous than the nearly three-hour running time might suggest.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Ella McCay (2025) Sandra Hall There’s a lot of talent at work and Brooks has a story with plenty of satirical potential in Ella’s adventures as an idealist... But [Brooks] never shows much sign of wanting to get to grips with it.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
The Family McMullen (2025) Karl Quinn What once seemed fresh and charming now feels rehearsed and rehashed. The Family McMullen has the air not of indie cinema but of a Hallmark movie.
Posted Dec 11, 2025  Edit critic review
True Lies (1994) Paul Byrnes The fights in True Lies are about reconciliation, the return to earth of a man living a fantasy life.
Posted Dec 10, 2025  Edit critic review
The Abyss (1989) Lynden Barber After starting as Sub-Aqua Aliens, the film lurches into Close Encounters of the Watery Kind; Cameron never manages to reconcile the two styles -- the tough and the naive.
Posted Dec 09, 2025  Edit critic review
A Christmas Carol (1984) Michael Cordell It is slick, glossy, and well-constructed with a good, all-English supporting cast.
Posted Dec 04, 2025  Edit critic review
Prev Next